There are still some…

My brother just called me from his job and had another guy there with a computer issue. It seems my brother can find the brightest people in the world, bright in a negative lumen’s type way. Anyways, this buddy of his buys a brand new laptop, actually the same laptop I have. Well, it comes with Windows Vista (of course mine had it, but never saw the light of day, didn’t even get one solid bootup with Windows), and it seems that Microsoft decided to finally recognize that the Unix world was one up with user/admin stuff. Now they have a superuser account instead of the old trusty administrator (of which a majority of users changed to sysadm or sysadmin because they thought it was more secure). Well it seems this guy created a password for the superuser account and even created a hint for it. He doesn’t remember doing so, so he says, but he has nonetheless forgot the password. OK, no problem, what is the hint? "haha". Little does he know that is really Vista laughing in his face.

After talking with the guy, who sounded either like Bill or Ted from their excellent adventures, I simply told him, "Just like breeding, computers are another thing you should leave alone.". Please God, make the Windows questions from family and friends go away.

Like this:

Why not just give him a gnome-desktop. Open up the ssh and vnc-ports in his/her router, and give him/her a disabled account. I do that all the time. If something is broken or needs to be installed, I use ssh or vnc and fix it. (vnc for user-level stuff, ssh for system level stuff).

I Never get any complains. If they don’t know how to do something, they call me, I log in with VNC and show them.
If something isn’t working, I enable it using SSH. Off course, some people don’t like the idea that I have access. Other are way happy about the immidiate and quick support. Fortunately, the ssh-level thingie, I don’t tell. They wouldn’t understand anyway and it would problely be scare the shit out of them, I can see their browsing history and pron-folders. But i’ve been fixing computers all my life, nothing suprises me anymore. People are just people.

Dinda

Hey Rich,
go easy on the “average” windows user, you have to remember that “they are the market.” If Ubuntu is serious about Bug #1 then you need to convince not just folks like you (preaching to the choir) but also those who are not like you at all that linux is a viable option.

Dinda, oh I agree, but not in this one instance 🙂 I got to meet “NOT” so average Windows Vista user. My father, who is an avid Microsoft fanboi even admitted pretty much the same as I. He even told the guy that the “haha” hint is Vista actually laughing at his dumb ass. See, I didn’t have the heart to tell him that at least 🙂

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Who is Richard A. Johnson?

My name is Richard A. Johnson. I am a professional developer, as
well as an open source enthusiast, advocate, and author. I spend
any free time I can get cycling.

Back in 1994 I was introduced to the world of open source
software by installing Linux on a PC I had purchased from the
Navy Exchange. At that time I had no idea what I was going up
against, but never once did I let myself get frustrated, as
Windows had already done that to me. Since then, I have
completely immersed myself into the open source world and have
been an active contributor.